Sega as voice-work in the Indian Ocean region

ABSTRACT

The island societies of the southwest Indian Ocean offer rich worlds that reveal shared discourses regarding the natural environment, politics and identity the region. This article draws on anthropological research and in particular, recorded video for its aesthetic analysis of voicework in Mauritius and Seychelles to discuss the role of voicework in revealing cultural regionalization and identity politics. It is proposed that the Sega (a musical genre), its lyrics and performance, foreground shared identity and responses to historical oppression in the region. The songs invoke the islanders’ resilience by referring to enduring elements in the natural environment. African descendants in the islands use the Sega and its performance, to locally (and naturally) embody resistance to the historical elite. Following literatures on bodywork in the social sciences, this article offers two concepts: voicework and voicescape. Voicework is multisensory, trans-contextual, impromptu and discursive expression in Sega music. The voicescape refers to the often island-specific political and cultural context generated by voicework. The article emphasizes the embodied nature of voicework, anthropological research experience and embodied social expression in the Indian Ocean region (IOR).

KEYWORDS:

• Voicework
• identity
• Creoles
• Indian Ocean

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Corrigendum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Rosabelle Boswell is an anthropologist and Executive Dean of Arts at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa. She is also an Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research focuses on identity and the management of cultural heritage in the islands of the southwest Indian Ocean region. She has done fieldwork in Mauritius, Seychelles, Zanzibar, Madagascar and South Africa. She is author of Le Malaise Creole: Ethnic identity in Mauritius (2006, Berghahn Books); Challenges to identifying and managing intangible cultural heritage in Mauritius, Zanzibar and Seychelles (2008, CODESRIA Press) and Representing heritage in Zanzibar and Madagascar (2011, Eclipse, Addis Ababa). In 2010, she led a research team on behalf of the Truth and Justice Commission to investigate the legacies of racism in Mauritius.

Notes

1. A concept used in the performance literature to represent the diverse performative uses of the (human) body for channeling discourses of power, hegemonies and sensualities.

2. Inaugural Lecture, Professor Andre Mukheibir, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2016.

3. Three Sega Legends from Mauritius in Sydney, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZXxrmnVkI8 accessed 3 September 2016.

4. His local and formal name differs because in those villages where Creoles predominate, locals tend not share their local name (ti noms) with strangers. There is a belief that one’s local name should be safeguarded by one’s friends and family, since strangers may have nefarious intentions. Local names facilitated a network of tightly knit people who know each other well. One could depend on this network for defense in times of trouble.

5. Roger Clency, ‘Bal ran Zarico’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x3uT5cVDBc accessed 1 September 2016.

6. Serge Lebrasse, ‘Moi mo ene ti Creole’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhNUhXZkOps accessed 2 September 2016.

7. Louise, Joseph, ‘Ti Kreol Leo’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqeRdVwo_TQ accessed 7 September 2016.

8. Tonpa Documentary, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0fze1noLoc accessed 10 September 2016.

9. Nancy Derougere, ‘Laké Poilon’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CByz4W65-lk accessed 1 September 2016.

10. Marie-Josee Clency, ‘Reprans mo Mari Anglais’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyh5SzKB4Qk accessed 1 September 2016.

11. There seemed to have been a similar sentiment among Mauritian women after the war. Many women had ‘moved on’ to other partners and families, believing that their husbands would never return.

12. Voicescape is also linguistic. In Zanzibar though, several words triggered memory of an old Sega by Serge Lebrasse, entitled Mo capitaine, in which the singer asks a beautiful girl, where she is going. He says ‘hapana wapi? Mo zoli sana?’ Half of the sentence is Swahili.